Mental Health - @funeral.lilly

"My name is Alex, I'm 15. (I'm non-binary but that story isn't about it.) By my necklace I want to raise awareness about teenage mental illness. Half a year ago I was diagnosed with mild depression and low social phobia. There was a lot of bad things in my life: I was bullied, my friends left me, my parents were working all the time, I was addicted to self harming, I was stressed because of school, dysphoria and more. I wish I could tell that now everything is fine but it would be a lie. I'm still fighting. That's one of the reasons I chose that necklace-it reminds me I'm not the only one struggling. During last few months I started to be more open about my story and I met a lot of people at my age who also have mental health problems. The defect is that nobody see us-broken teenagers. People think that things like that are completely normal at that age. But we have to start seeing the difference between small, short problems and real depression. If we were more aware maybe the second cause of teenage death wouldn't be suicide. I wear that necklace for every teenager who is fighting, and for the ones who are already gone from that world. We have to hold together. We have to stay strong. We have to survive." @funeral.lilly